


Horror of our "Love"

by cancerousGrievance



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Abuse, Blood, Dark, Death, Demons, Demonstuck, Drug Use, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, F/M, Gen, Gore, Homestuck - Freeform, Homestuck AU, Humanstuck, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Lies, M/M, Magic, Manipulation, Marijuana, Mental Institutions, Monsters, Nightmares, Physical Abuse, Songfic, Swearing, Time Shenanigans, Violence, Witches, highschool, long chapters, mature language, multi-chapter, small town, trickery
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-12-12
Updated: 2016-09-19
Packaged: 2018-05-06 09:11:51
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 8,266
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5411168
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cancerousGrievance/pseuds/cancerousGrievance
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Karkat Vantas is being stalked by a demon, one  that plagues his dreams and makes his life a psychological hell.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Haunted

An adolescent boy's dull grey eyes opened to something terrible.

 

The sound of soft breathing was audible and the face of another was above his own. One may argue that this is not terrible at all (though the other's face being above his could potentially be awkward). However, the boy had no lover or very close friends to speak of. That and his guardian didn't pay much attention to him under many circumstances. So, frankly the presence of another being so close to him like that, in HIS room, terrified him. Only when he next squeezed his eyes shut in horror and expectancy of harm, the presence disappeared and his quaint room was lonely once more.

The boy now felt confused, pupils exposed again to the dim light of the moon illuminating his average middle-classly furnished room. Had he simply imagined it all? The figure's defined facial structure and unforgettable purple irises were too hyper realistic in his memory to feel like a product of his mind. No human could honestly ever hope to steal themselves away without a hint of them to be found in such a limited time.

The boy cautiously got himself up without any further delay despite the fear radiating off of him and made sure his windows were locked, which they were (which was suspicious in itself if there had really been someone else in his room). He even went so far as to check under his bed and in his closet, like a scared child might in their days of believing in the monsters that hid in the darkness of their rooms at night. The boy couldn't believe he was actually doing this, but somehow as he found these spaces just as empty as he had always known them to be he felt much safer.

The next morning when he went to school the boy spoke to a trusted friendly acquaintance whom he had gone to with problems before, a frankly beautiful girl with a good sense of fashion and a head full of sense in general upon her strong shoulders.

She stared ahead consideringly, fixing her jade green lipstick and soft chocolate hair as the boy told the story of the one of shadow with the purple eyes staring at him in his sleep last night.

"Perhaps you were dreaming in a lucid state and you had a bad wake," she suggested whilst replacing the cap on her lipstick and stuffing it into the spacious pocket of her pretty embroidered red skirt.

The boy nodded, taking this in. He supposed it made sense. He tucked the experience away in his mind, realizing he shouldn't think about it anymore because quite frankly it wasn't worth the time. Though he could've sworn he had slept dreamlessly. . . He had probably just forgotten his dream. It was common. He'd latch onto anything he could, as long as he didn't have to consider the possibility of a stalker or something of the like.

Weeks passed and he woke up the same way as he did that specific night. Over and over again. He knew by the time it had become recurring that there was no way Kanaya's explanation was right, as reasonable as it appeared at first.

The imagery was a little bit different every time, the positioning of everything off with each occurrence. He analyzed the remnants of the images ghosted in his mind until they were burnt into his mental photo gallery, he should know. It became a quiet obsession of his. Over time he noticed that the figure had a painted face. Grey and white, patterned. Scars presumably lay underneath, visible by the particular texture of the skin.

The consistent appearance of the shadow boy bothered him whenever he had time to think. Anytime he would lay in bed, waiting for sleep. Anytime he was trying to work in his job as a barista in a local coffee shop. So he threw himself into filling as much of his free time as possible.

He fell into old sleeping habits, that being scarcely any at all. His ex girlfriend noticed his sleeplessness, one time in the hall stopping him and telling him she could smell the insomnia in his brain from across the room with a half-hearted grin. She was probably just bullshitting though, picking up on the increase in the dramaticism of his eyebags instead (despite her legal blindness- it was a complex topic). He had simply snorted at the comment and continued on with his business.

On week two from the start of the "issue" his old best friend even went so far as to comment on his looking like shit, like he had done sarcastically in the old days but with genuine concern as an undertone. The boy with grey eyes responded with a prompt return of full sarcasm in the form of a thanks paired with a middle finger as he walked away swiftly. He couldn't let them worry about him. Maybe if he prickled enough they'd drop it.

The boy from his waking moments was fucking him up. He began to hallucinate the figure's presence everywhere he went. His mind was ridden with anxiety. The figure was everywhere. The boy with the purple eyes and the face paint and the black curly hair. Sometimes he lay in shadow, sometimes almost clear as day (but regardless covered in a slight blur).

He began to stay up for days at a time to avoid encounters, only to pass out from exhaustion and briefly wake up with an even worse headache than he started with and even more dog tired than he felt before he slept. This caused him to suffer terribly in school and at his job. He wasn't sure why his job didn't just boot him at the rate he was going.

He eventually began to have horrible nightmares that would occur every time he fell asleep at night. Of a carnival. The boy, who was in a black and purple suit, with a silken black top hat adorned with colorful feathers. He would follow him through the eerie carnival, until a slowly growing crowd of shadow people blocked his view. When he would finally manage to break through the aforementioned crowd, a great fissure would then appear in the ground and the ocean would roar up through the wretched crevice, waves splashing up  against the newly formed sea cliff and sea mist in his face. It always felt so excruciatingly real. . .

He would then tumble over the edge from his careless rushing through the crowd. The honking of bike horns would blare in his ears making him feel like he was losing his mind completely as he plummeted down and smacked into the water, bones shattering. The world would then go black and he'd wake to the flash of the purple-eyed boy's face and with a cold sweat mimicking the feeling of the water enveloping him, nerves haywire and mind unwilling to calm down again.

The nightmare was always mostly the same, with little differences each time. Sometimes the water wasn't even there. Sometimes the shadow people were dressed as formally as the purple-eyed boy, or fog was rampant through the chaotic layout of the carnival. Other times he couldn't tell anything at all, or he would fail to scream when he fell.

The stress of the consistent horrors he faced eventually turned him to the dumpster area where the stoners of his school hung out. He met a girl there with cherry red lips and rust brown eyes in a tattered though pleasant grey dress. She gave him the 'goods' and he let himself go a little bit away from the other weed smokers, relaxing for the first time in a month when he administered the drug into his system.

Only it didn't last. Eventually, as he wandered the pacific northwestern woods near his school in a high daze, he saw something that scared him even more than his nightmares could. The purple-eyed boy in the flesh. He was frozen as he stared ahead, shivering from fear, drugs failing to keep him calm in the physical confrontation of the one that had begun to haunt his life a month earlier.

The first sensible action that came to his mind was to run. However, before he could even begin to turn around, he felt a hand and ragged claws on his shoulder and he was suddenly unable to move even an inch. Unable to breathe for his terror was so overwhelming. He was immobile for reasons he could not decipher. Was he dreaming? He was dreaming. He was dreaming. He must be dreaming, how else could this be happening? His dreams could not be invading his reality, it could not be it really could not be! But he failed to wake up as the boy's touch (or something- who knows) compelled him to turn around.

 

"Karkat..."

 

His voice was soft yet gruff and lulled like the waves at the calmest ocean shoreline. Deliciously salty and smooth. The boy hated it. He knew he would hate it as he scrutinized the figure's face for anything else that he could hate. His lightly smudged face paint, the way his black hair curled in natural looking ringlets and the black piercings in his face, even the significantly less formal outfit he wore now than from his dreams consisting of sweatpants and a hoodie.The boy would hate everything about him. Even his undeniable prettiness (that undoubtedly made him want to throw up).

What happened next disgusted him beyond words. The purple-eyed boy pulled him close and he could not stop it, even though he wanted to so desperately. The other softly smelled his neck and then pushed his lips against the smaller boy's. The kiss was ginger for a brief moment before falling into a rough and wanting forcefulness, although unreciprocated.

The boy raised his hands to the other's chest and applied as much force as he could, but the demon with purple eyes did not budge. He did not want this kiss, he wanted nothing to do with this horrible inhuman person who plagued his every breathing moment. Even when he was supposed to feel carefree and calm and under the influence.

Eventually the other pulled away. Somehow his face paint looked unfazed, despite smooshing his face close to his own. The boy stared blankly into the face of his nightmare and powerlessly waited for what action he would take next. He was surprised when the purple-eyed boy let him go. Even more so when he leaned close again and whispered something into his ear, before disappearing into the expanse of the forest.

He looked onwards in shock and distaste, trying to lose himself in the sight of the colorful foliage around him. Only as his eyes analyzed every little detail of the forest, a few feet away he noticed something even more atrocious and frankly mind rending at this point. A corpse.

The boy choked back a sob, now cautiously moving closer to the cadaver. Had his nightmare killed this person? He could not identify specifically who it was as he drew close enough to see it's face. Anyone who he held anywhere close to dearly was safe. He took a deep breath and leaned down to look closer, despite the nausea he felt. Despite knowing it was an absolutely terrible idea.

The body looked to be covered in nasty bruising. No exterior bleeding, aside from a suspicious pattern of drips trailing from the neck. Even though he knew he shouldn't the boy leaned closer to inspect, dark dusky brown locks falling further into his face. He gulped and drew back slowly.

 

A heart was sharply carved into the flesh.

 

The boy gathered himself as best he could, stumbled up and ran. He ran and ran, as fast and as smoothly as he could manage with the way his mind was clouded with marijuana. Eventually he broke through the forest back into the general vicinity of the dumpsters behind his school.

Some of the stoners were still sitting around while some had presumably gone home as school was out of session, and had been for a few hours by now. At this point in time nightfall was already swiftly approaching due to the Winter months being in season, another reason the boy did not want to stick around. He could only imagine what the woods would do to him at night, alone and in the dark.

The girl from before with the cherry red lips and rust brown eyes noticed the fresh haunted look in his eyes, wandering towards him with curiosity. The boy did no't want to speak though, and he knew if he did not leave right then he would have to answer questions or something of the like. So he simply pretended he did not see the girl and walked by as quickly as he could.

He soon arrived back at his home, nearly getting into a car accident on the way from his dulled reactions and reflexes. He could hear the blaring of sirens as he made his way towards the front door. The high pitched squealing hurt his ears.

The boy left his backpack on the stairs leading up to the second story of his average middle class sized house, stumbling up to his bedroom. It was the place in which he felt safest, surrounded by gray walls. But even there he was filled with some inkling of fear, for that is where he had his nightmares and that is where he was now certain that the purple-eyed boy visited him each and every night.

He half-heartedly turned on the small flatscreen television in his room, trying to relax somehow. The boy flipped through the channels mindlessly, planning on stopping on the first thing that drew his interest.

The news was that first thing. What he saw made his scalp prickle. It was another dead body.

 

Another dead body. Covered in bruises. No less than five miles from his house.

 

The investigators were examining in the distance. One of them, an older man, had a very strong reaction to something he saw. Worry? Concern? At this point the boy stared blankly at the screen. He turned off the television then, settling for getting under his bedsheets instead. He could not deal with anything more like that. The boy immersed himself in a romance novel until he unwillingly fell asleep.

When he woke up the next morning, he was thoroughly surprised. There were no nightmares. He had not even seen the face of his tormentor. For the first time in over a month, he had not seen his face. The amount of relief that washed over him could have filled the chasm from his nightmares.

Maybe all of that in itself had been a dream though. The boy checked the date on his phone, which lay beside his bed on a pecan wood bedside table. His sudden speculation was quickly dismissed as he read the date, December 4th of 2015. A Friday. The hope that it was over regardless persisted in his mind. He really wanted it to be over.

However, when he arrived at school he was approached by his ex girlfriend. She pulled him to the outside of the girl's bathrooms and spoke quietly but very clear.

 

"Mister Vantas, last night there was a murder in our little town."

 

He stared at her, unfazed, waiting for her to continue. Usually when she brought up a committed crime, there was something more behind it than to just point it out to him.

"As you know, my mother works in the police force," she paused, presumably gathering her thoughts as she pushed her red tinted glasses back up the bridge of her freckled nose while leaning forward ominously on her cane.

"Yes Terezi, go on," the boy contributed as something intended to urge her onwards but accidentally gave a rude pushy vibe instead.

"Well you know what they found on the body?" Her tone was tinged with something scary but unknown, growing gradually quieter.

"I-" The girl cut him off, only meaning her question rhetorically. "Words, carved into the skin. Specifically 'KARKAT VANTAS WILL BE MINE'. In full slashy capitals. Do you know anything about the murderer?" Her voice was laced with a concern he'd never heard from her before directed at him.

The boy stared ahead, stomach dropping through the floor, down through the foundation of the school, and into the ground. He was fucked wasn't he.

 

So totally fucked.


	2. Cycling of Tides

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Safety doesn't last. Who knows what's around the corner? Killing is easy for those who want something. The dead aren't always gone, and mysterious kids in the woods may know more than they seem at first glance. The forest holds many dark things.

As the boy had hoped, the nightmares had ceased.

 

He stopped seeing the figure that terrified him by night and stalked him by day. When he had returned from school the day of the morning where he realized he might just be free, the following night brought more dreamless and figureless sleep. The boy couldn't have been more relieved. He thought then maybe his 'curse' was gone forever.

However with the alleviation of his personal horrors, something more sinister had begun to take place around him.

The most shocking thing the boy noticed was the sharp increase in the reporting of murders in his town. What used to be a rare sight now made it's appearance daily. Despite the unsettlement it brought him, the boy made sure to pay as much attention to the news as he could.

Each and every body found terrified him to the core. Usually the reports said the victims were killed by battery. Every report however took note of words carved into the skin of victims in varied locations.

People started staring at him even weirder than they usually did. Some of them accused him of being involved with the 'scary serial killer from the news', others were simply concerned for him. He wasn't sure which group he wanted to fuck off more. He hated this attention.

Eventually the cops showed up at his house. They questioned him about his involvement with the murderer. He told the officers that he didn't know what was going on and that he was scared to death. Both weren't terribly untrue. Regardless of the messages left to him on the corpses, he was not given protection. Police forces were spread thin as tracing paper.

Speaking of his father, he was a single, kind-hearted man dedicated to the equality of all. The messages to his son were really taking a toll on him. The insomnia from his youth returned harshly and he often sat downstairs now, late at night, hoping nobody would come for one of the last physical things he held dear.

There were no leads on the case. The boy knew exactly who the killer was though. However, he had no inkling of an idea how to tell the authorities that the killer they'd been scouring town for was a teenage looking kid with Juggalo face paint from his nightmares that felt him up and kissed him hard deep in the forest. That would totally make him sound completely batshit crazy.

 

So he said nothing.

 

Townsfolk were beginning to panic. When he went out, if ever, he'd always see a new selling house. They were always empty as quick as the owners could manage to pack up and leave. Nobody came to fill the uninhabited houses, knowing about the murder spree. The town felt eerie and deserted after a while, a selling empty house on every corner, the owners having no intention of ever coming back. All thanks to his hidden nightmare.

The boy had a feeling that his father and him were going to leave too, sometime soon. Even though he knew deep in his mind that they couldn't outrun his nightmare. His father didn't know what he did, or he wouldn't acknowledge the parts he could know at least. That the shadow boy would find them wherever they went. No matter how far they went.

He also knew that if this happened, if he really moved far far away on the whims of his protective and honest father, that he would be ripped away from all he ever knew. All of his ties to this town and the people he grew up with, even if not especially relevant anymore, he knew he just couldn't handle. Everything was already changing though. Some of his old friends were already gone. The girl with the jade lips. The fancy water loving girl who was always coddling everyone (Jade lips being his best and safest person to vent to and receive sensible advice from. He supposed he didn't actually care much about Feferi- she was always around though and he assumed that made some impact on his perception of life and things).

He blamed each and every death on himself. How could he not? Each corpse had his name carved into its flesh somewhere. The boy wasn't sure how he'd handle it if one of his old friends were killed. The only thing that kept him relatively sane was not seeing his old nightmare. Ironically, neither of these things remained simply a possibility.

One specific Tuesday morning he heard a knock at his front door. The tired boy had overslept his alarm to wake up for school for the second day that week and his father had made no effort to get him to the place of American education that day, hence his son then being there to attend to people knocking at the door. He opened it to a very visibly concerned ex girlfriend.

"Karkat, are you sure you don't know anything?" She cut straight to the point, no hellos or anything. Her face meant business. Usually she'd joke around at least a little bit, but he knew this was too serious. Too persistent, to use any humor.

The boy's old lover had asked him over and over the same question. He could never answer with the truth. She knew it. Her intuition was as strong as her desire for the truth.

He nearly did tell her the truth. But, at last moment he held back. He honestly didn't think she'd believe him. Even if she did, he was even less sure her mother would. As he told her he didn't know a thing, she sighed deeply and, simply walked away. She knew he'd lied again. The boy almost stopped her, but again doubted the benefit of what he had to say.  In his desperation, all he managed was a soft call of her name, not enough to draw her attention. He supposed she'd just have to look down on him forever. Even if he hated it.

He soon found out that the girl who used to follow him around at elementary recess and confessed her love for him every other week in middle school was dead. With her best friend, the sweaty strongman of high school. An odd pair- especially in death, and especially in the fact that it looked like the crazy cat girl had outlived him, getting foreign blood on her knuckles.

The police went batshit over the sudden evidence. But nothing matched their systems, which perplexed them even further. They now knew that the killer was off the charts. The boy still doubted their believing in his story though, despite the information they knew they didn't have.

The two deaths made him throw up, and sob into his pillow that night, and hyperventilate. He hadn't been wholly affected by the others deaths because it wasn't like he'd ever spoken to those victims. But it kind of hit home when kids directly involved in his life so far had been murdered, especially just two blocks from his home. It was sickening.

He saw his nightmare that night, waking up from a dreamless slumber. He screamed. Loud but short. His eyes were streaming from fear, tears rolling down his cheeks from the anguish he felt.

His father had heard and rushed up the stairs as quickly as his feet would let him go without tripping and having to start over again. The scream made him fear for his son, for he never screamed that way. Weighed with such dread. . . He pushed open the door quickly, startling his son, who was now quickly wiping at his eyes.

"Karkat. . . ?" the boy's father trailed off, checking the room and his son for any sign of harm. There seemed to be none, which led him to be confused. What could have possibly scared him that much? Little did he know.

The boy could tell that his father was terrified when he looked over at his face while he stood in the doorway. He swiftly checked by the window where his nightmare had been, but saw nothing.

"I'm fine," he mumbled with traces of indignity, confusing his father but ensuring a lack of real explanation by saying it was only a dream.

The next day the boy felt weighted, more so than he could recall feeling before. His heart was heavy and he knew that he would no longer be left alone by the thing that went from haunting him to haunting his town. Now it was back to him.

Though really he had never stopped being personally haunted. He didn't know that though. The boy didn't know that the demon still stalked him in his sleep. The demon simply quieted his presence. He brought his victim's hopes up of personal escape while degrading the morality of those around him, only to plunge the boy with the grey eyes back into dread when he revealed himself again. The pretty grey eyes that sparkled with fear whenever they caught on him.

The boy attended school with dread plaguing his mind. In the halls they whispered about Nepeta, and Equius. They whispered about Karkat Vantas too, and how suspicious and jumpy he was. The boy felt nauseous the whole day, acid burning at the back of his throat.

Regardless of how shitty he felt, at the end of the school day he paid a visit to the Cemetery. Even though he was scared out of his mind, he felt he owed something to the pile of corpses that had fallen under his name. He'd feel like an even bigger fucktard if he didn't at least acknowledge the dead.

He would have found the idea ridiculous a few months ago, going to the Cemetery to visit the dead. But now the idea of spirits didn't quite stick out as an impossibility, with what he'd experienced.

As he arrived at the hilly plot of land surrounded by trees, he shivered. Something felt off. Voices? No, it couldn't be voices at all. That would be. . . Absolutely preposterous.

 

Despite his denial the boy wasn't quite convinced.

 

Something chilled him to the bone as he strolled along the pathway. The one that led to the dread invoking sight of at least twenty graves. Brand new, fresh-poured. He was about up the path when he saw an outline in the shadow filled haze of green that was the forest. It disappeared swiftly.

 

"What the fuck was that. . ." the boy mumbled to himself, feeling his stomach drop.

 

He suddenly heard soft laughter behind him. Laughter tinted with a sense of fulfillment. Happiness- no, smugness. The boy nearly screamed, but was halted by a hand over his mouth. His vision blacked out, tears falling down his cheeks as he lost consciousness.

 

He saw a blink of a purple eye surrounded by black. His spine prickled with a cold terror.

 

Then he woke up. In the middle of the forest. He was leaned up against a tree, unrestrained. Untouched. Or so he thought. After examining his arms, the boy noticed a dull ache in his ribs. He lifted his sweatshirt to reveal purple bruises on his stomach.

His drowsy eyes flashed open and he dug around frantically in his front pocket for his phone. He almost lost it- but his fingertips made contact with cool glass before he was totally consumed by anguish. The boy was about to activate the lock screen, when in the shattered grey looking reflection of the screen he saw his neck. A bruise around it, shaped like a hand. Dear god.

He returned his phone to his pocket before pushing up from the tree and feeling a flash of dizziness as he did. The boy's vision nearly blacked out, inducing deja vu. He didn't remember how he got here. Or why there were nasty bruises on his abdomen and neck and possibly elsewhere- he had neglected to check his back or his legs.

The boy was drawn from his thoughts by a tickling sensation on his arm. Looking down, he noticed there was a spider on his wrist. He took a sharp intake of breath and tried to shake it off. It fell, landing visibly on the leaves and pine needles on the forest floor. Eugh.

As the arachnid scuttled away, the boy swore he heard a quiet, though identifiably feminine laugh. He grew more unsettled than he already was. What could possibly be in this forest with him? Girls and spiders? His nightmare?

He decided he needed to escape this damned heap of trees. Gaining hope, the boy took his phone out of his pocket once more, clicking the home button. Nothing happened. He tried again, explaining the fault away as a glitch. It'd turn on eventually.

Only it didn't. The boy felt his stomach drop as he held down the toggle button on the side of his phone. It was dead. His phone was dead and he was somewhere in a forest. Possibly alone, possibly not. Possibly hallucinating. No matter what, he was completely convinced that he was yet again fucked. Totally and utterly.

Deciding he wanted to make at least some effort to get out, the boy began walking. He had no way to tell where the forest ended and where it began. He could climb a tree but for one, none of them looked climbable enough. Two, he'd never actually climbed a tree. Both were enough to deter him from trying. At least in what he suspected were the deep woods.

What looked like shadowy figures flitted across the boy's vision as he walked aimlessly through the most obnoxious forest in all of existence. He considered his sanity for as he walked longer and longer, the trees almost seemed to grow taller and wider. A terrifying concept, for it just showed that he was getting nowhere. That and the fact that it was nearly sunset drove him to tears. He could die here. He wasn't prepared for surviving in the middle of the woods.

The boy choked on his sobs as he walked, tears dripping down his face. How horrible, how terrible-

A figure stood with its back turned to him in the distance, barely moving, shaking it seemed. It had short hair, white blonde. Pasty albino white skin. It looked familiar. Humanoid and masculine appearing- he, looked familiar.

The boy silenced himself, staring ahead. His legs felt like lead. Who was that? Why was there a boy in the middle of the forest? That is, why were there two boys in the middle of the forest? A couple of figures danced in his peripheral vision. Long hair and short, curly. He ignored it. His interest lay with the albino dude with a striking resemblance to someone he'd never seen.

Now that he'd stood there long enough like an idiot, the boy had to decide if he wanted to engage. This could turn out terribly. It could also however work out very well. He might be slaughtered mercilessly, but the other could also know the way out or something of the sort.

In the end it came down to: die now or die later. But dying later had three ways to go. Dying slowly as he wandered the forest alone. Unable to get food, finding no water, cause of death from any variety of things. A second die later was in the case he got out. Other things could kill him off then. The third was getting out of the forest with the boy or being provided with the chance to survive in the forest and wow were his considerations taking a considerable amount of time and worry. Clearly he should just talk to the other. The goods outweigh the bads of running off.

"Who are you?" he questioned without a thought. Hopefully he wouldn't get chopped in the face. He again ignored the figures in the corners of his eyes. They disappeared promptly.

The figure turned around, slowly and deliberately. In his hand were broken sunglasses, something he hadn't noticed before. When he was facing him completely, the boy was taken aback by eyes that were a dazzling ruby red. Shining, ironically, with tears. Two boys in the middle of the forest, crying their eyes out. What next, would he be lost in them with no explanation as well? Was he haunted by his nightmare?

 

". . ."

 

The two stared at each other for a while, analyzing. What could have possibly made him cry? Why did his neck have a bruise so bad in the shape of a hand? Why did he hold broken sunglasses?

The red eyed boy gave a cold, short laugh, wiping tears from his eyes with a careless but empty hand.

 

"I'm Strider. Nice to meet your acquaintance, kitten."


	3. A Series of Strange Happenings

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Who is this boy in the forest? Mysterious monsters lurk. Is there something deeper that Strider is involved in? What about those suspicious girls?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Haha finally.

“Kitten?”

 

The boy was dumbfounded by this red eyed guy’s nonchalance and his audacity to refer to him as ‘kitten’. _ Of all things _ . Such an out-there nickname pinned to him at such a time left him staring at the familiar stranger in front of him for a solid handful of seconds.

“Ha. Yeah, Dunno, just seemed like the right fit there. Ya Know, since you’re so small and nonthreatening. By the by, I totally know that my shit is fooling you,” the mysterious (and totally frustrating) albino casually wiped the tears from his face, his expression completely straight at this point aside from the slightest of cold smirks.

Shaking off the previous shock, the boy’s feelings of uncertainty and lostness faded and gave way to a combination of emotions that had failed to afflict him for some time now. Confusion, plus anger. How dare he call him small and non threatening, it was not as if he already knew him. The boy wiped his face harshly, hoping it would clear the evidence of his open crying. Though, that was in fact clearly impossible.

“Okay then, you total creep. I have no idea what you’re talking about but I do happen to know that A) Any trace of pity I had for your sorry ass is fading, and B)-”

“Just cap it you crabby fuck, The whole crying thing was a ruse, and I totally tripped your ass with it so get over it.” He spoke in an almost practiced manner. It peeved the boy to no return but being in such an unrested and stressed state as he was, he simply could not assemble a proper response to this fuckery other than a stupefied, “You. . . were faking,”

“Yeah, what’re you gonna do about it?.” ‘Strider’ prodded.

The way that this boy spoke and acted was unlike anything that the victim had actually had firsthand experience with ever. It made him want to strangle himself for reasons other than being tormented by some curly haired juggalo demon for longer than a month straight. Which was almost. . . welcome. But then he remembered that anger was supposed to make you want to avoid people, not stick around them because it was distracting or something convoluted and gross and angsty like that. He opened his mouth to speak, but the annoying tool was gone.

But then he was not, and instead behind the boy with his hand clamped like granite over his mouth. “I really don’t need your commentary, so just forget any petty shit you were going to retaliate with. Anyway, are you in my dumb mysterious forest posse or not? ‘Cuz if your answer is no then you’re dead.”

All that the boy could manage to do was stand there like a frightened animal. It was not as if he could speak even if he tried. The other laughed. “Oh right, haha. Forgot. Sorry about that I’ll just let you have your little moment.”

“Um. . . Excuse me but, dead?” The boy spoke slowly and chose his words carefully. He was even more unsure what he was dealing with than when he first saw this ‘Strider’. Maybe he really would be killed right here and now. A part of him almost wished that would be his fate.

“Yah, have you seen this fucking forest dude? Straight outta your nightmares. Yikes.” The prick explained his cryptic little speech, but the boy was not quite sure what he meant. Until he took a second look at the forest around him. What he saw this time left him rethinking his perception. Everything looked so much darker and forbidding than it did before. Dare he say, demonic. At first he could not figure out what had made this change. But then he realized that the sun had disappeared from the sky between the beginning of the encounter and now. Something he was sure he would have noticed but. . . Maybe the imminent confusion and fear and ultimately the distraction of this guy had led him to fail in noticing the actual setting of the sun. Even though he could have sworn it had only just begun its descent into the horizon. . . 

“Hello? You pissing yourself or something?” His tone was especially no bullshit this time and almost teasing. The sounds of unfamiliar, dark creatures echoed from the trees. This drove the boy astray from reason, fearing the strange things in the twilight cloaked forest.

“Am not,” He spoke defensively, earning a snort from his identifiable company. The boy paused for a moment before finally responding to the initial question. “. . . and yeah, fine, I’ll go with you.”

This albino shit had to have at least some semblance of an idea of how to survive here at least. Though it was not as if he had another option anyway. Not now. The softly glowing eyes in the trees were enough to tell him that being alone was unadvisable. Dangerously unadvisable.

The suspicious dude dropped the broken shades on the ground with a bitter smile. He seemed to be staring somewhere in the distance as he carelessly kicked pieces of the forest floor over the warped aviators. The boy nearly asked what he was doing, but something told him that he would not get anything out of prying into that.

“C’mon.” ‘Strider’ (It totally sounded fake) spoke listlessly, pulling out a lighter and flicking the flame to life all in one quick motion. He held the item as if it were not a fiery object capable of destruction but as if it were a familiar toy. Much too casual.

The boy felt discomfort gnaw at his stomach more intensely than before. There was definitely  _ something _ off about this guy. It was absolutely impossible to pin exactly what it was though.

He decided he better hurry up however, as the teen (Maybe? He could not quite tell) had already begun to trek into the trees and light could only travel so far.

The way that his guide travelled was unpredictable and quick. The boy feared he would get lost on more than one occasion. Or, at least more lost than he already seemed to be. Being with someone in these mysterious woods made it feel slightly more like he knew where the hell he was, even if that was not actually the truth.

The boy with grey eyes was not sure how much time had passed as he mindlessly trailed after ‘the leader’. It did not help that the moon was likely at the new point in its cycle, appearing invisible to his eyes and leaving the forest especially black.

He was stuck at this point between focusing on what he was missing and the edgy guy he was following. The former meaning his dad and his old friends and his bed and any sense of security and reassurance in his life other than following a stranger through these stupid trees, His deal with the whole ‘waking up in a forest suddenly’ was no less unsettling than it was initially.

He wondered if they would ever stop, considering it had to have been at least a couple of hours that the other had been leading them for. His legs were tired and he felt increasingly gross as the trek went on.

Finally he seemed like he was going to get the break he was hoping for. The apparently tireless figure who had been guiding him into nowhere for however long finally stopped flitting around. But then he climbed one of the trees in the area, and in doing so extinguished the flame of his lighter.

“What the actual fuck are you doing?” The boy called to his quickly advancing figure, exhausted and inconsiderate of the potential risk of being loud in such an ominous place.

“Scanning the area.” The answer was short and minorly tinged with what sounded like frustration.

It was at that moment that it occurred to the boy that maybe, by chance the pair’s goals did not meet. Where exactly was ‘Strider’ taking him? The uncertainty he had finally managed to acknowledge bled into his stomach and made it more upset than usual.

“Right. . . So um, where exactly are we trying to go?” The boy’s tone was almost accusatory, He was met with silence. Dread weighed into his muscles as he felt his mind start racing with doubts and he was so so tense and he knew the trees looked thicker and taller and-

“Out of this damned forest, duh.” His companion finally responded as he began to climb back down from the tree, stupidly nonchalant. He would take it. He was probably just distracted with looking around when he was at a good branch.

“Okay. You never really specified anything other than that I could die in ‘this damned forest’ so I thought it wouldn’t hurt to make sure.” The boy moved his cold hands into the big front pocket of his sweatshirt and glared at the bulge his hands made in the fabric as he fiddled with his fingers.

“And is that my fault or something?” the other questioned before letting himself drop to the forest floor from a safe height on the trunk.

“Oh and you should probably tone that loud ass voice of yours down.” the other said as he glared at him when he had turned around fully. It was a dangerous kind of look and tone, one that left him feeling no need to respond to that particular part of the conversation. Even if it did kind of aggravate him. In fact he really wanted to talk louder just to spite him. But on second consideration, it would be smarter to be quieter.

The boy thought for a moment about the thing the other had said before. He supposed it really was not the red-eyed teen’s fault. Sure it was kind of an obvious thing to define when one combines parties with another. But this was the guy that was apparently “faking” the end of a realistic sob fit. He really was not sure how to define somebody like that other than with the adjective unpredictable. He was an unpredictable stranger.

“-you deaf?!” ‘Strider’ was almost shouting. The boy had not even noticed, caught up in his own thoughts in a way that prevented him from sensing whatever had caused such an outburst. A deep, broken growl entered his ears. He was completely unsure of whether he should bolt or stay still. Adrenaline told him the former. Movies told him it could be either.

 

“FUCKING MOVE.”

 

He did not hesitate. The boy, shaking and terrified, bolted. Or at least he tried to. Jagged burning claws sunk into and caught deep in the flesh of his ankle, the energy that was already driving him forward not stopping. The claws were stuck in there deep and incredibly sharp and the paw behind them was strong. The result was those same claws digging out a chunk of his ankle and royally fucking up the muscle. He screamed and fell on his face, back arching from the sudden intense pain.

“Ohh my god, shit shit shit shit shit shit-” Someone was frantically muttering (Strider), paired with the sound of a sword scratching from its scabbard.

The boy felt something drag against his “afflicted spot”, damp and rough. This caused another surge of pain.

Everything faded into black. His senses bled into nothing at all. Not even the feeling of the leaves under his useless body remained.

But then suddenly things were alive again. Though, notably mediocre. His hearing was haloed and he could not manage to open his eyes. He wanted more of everything else but he honestly wished he could not feel. His ankle burned as if acid were being poured over it at this very moment.

“-can’t believe you got lost!” a fragmented female voice exclaimed, clearly pissed off. Just then everything proceeded to tune out again.

“-st take him to your _ fucking witch _ , he’s going to  _ die. _ You know how-” It was the same girl. Same tone, more frantic.

It seemed as if he were hearing one side to an argument. What the hell did all of this mean? The amount of time that he had to process everything was short as he blacked out again.

“Dave!” A notably more peppy girl squealed. A pause (Who the fuck was Dave?). “It's been forever, you jerk.” She was both playful and annoyed. A little bit sullen.

The boy still could not open his eyes. His leg felt like it was rioting against itself whilst being burnt by a blowtorch and his throat burned with a similar passion. “Oh no, what happened-” The sympathetic voice faded into nothing, as expected.

This particular period that the boy’s mind spent floating in the void felt longer than those before. There was no space for thinking and no space for feeling anything at all. All in all it felt like no time, but simultaneously eternity was _being stretched over infinity and it was all so endless_ _and overwhelming_. Until all of that disappeared.

His eyes fluttered open, feeling like a thousand years had passed in his toxic slumber. However long he had been out, it had been far too much time. His limbs felt like rocks. He would take that over the feeling of his flesh melting, though.

He had so many questions. It felt like he was laying on some sort of bed. Where was he? Who were those girls? Who the fuck was Dave? (Common sense told him that ‘Dave’ was actually ‘Strider’. . . He could ask about that one. If he was still there). How much time had passed? What had attacked him? His mind raced with all sorts of inquiries of a similar caliber.

There was a ceiling above him, a grid of disorderly dark wooden beams supporting the roof above. He let his eyes wander, taking in wooden walls and an abundance of unidentifiable plants. Everything felt calm and easy. Like he could finally just  _ relax _ .

It seemed like he was in a room within a house. Eventually his eyes located a sturdy looking door. How did he get here?

Having avoided doing so until now and a little nervous of what he would see, the boy finally looked down upon himself. Aside from some suspiciously green bandages nothing looked out of the ordinary.

Other than his clothing, which had clearly been changed. Or at least he did not  _ remember  _ walking out of the house with some old red t shirt and a black skirt. Why the  _ fuck  _ was he in a skirt? It was probably to his ankles when it was not awkwardly pushed up and away from his injury, and totally not a flattering sight on himself.

Suddenly the door creaked open. A girl with pale sunless skin, circle glasses and long tangled black hair stood in the doorway. She looked surprised when the boy was staring back at her, a salve of some sort contained in a glass bottle in her hands.

“Well look who’s already awake,” the girl looked and sounded a little bit frustrated, a nervous smile putting her obvious overbite and gapped front teeth on display.

“Um,” the boy said ‘gracefully’, mind slow to process what was happening and mouth even slower. His voice was even raspier than it was regularly, unused for the duration of his sleep.

By now the lady in the skirt had set down what could only be assumed to be medicine and waggled her fingers like some sort of magician performing a shitty overrated trick.

 

Only whatever it was worked, and the boy passed out again.


	4. DEAR READERS

Dear Readers,

I'n posting this note as a forewarning for an indefinitely timed hiatus. I do not know how long it will last and I apologize for that. I know how annoying it can be to wait for things like these. I appreciate each and every one of you for taking the time to read this little side project thus far and all of you to come. However, due to personal circumstances I do not feel fit enough to continue this work at current and do not have an estimate as to when this might change.

Thank you all so very much,

Kat


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